All video games have a history... a history of rumors and official statements, of leaks, of screenshots, of trailers and other things that excite us, confuse us or do both. So how do we get from the smallest hint of a new game to the real thing? What's the journey?

Today, we're debuting something a little different: a Kotaku Timeline—a timeline that tells the tale of the public emergence of the biggest, most interesting video games. The first game we're giving this treatment to may well be the biggest game of 2013: Rockstar's Grand Theft Auto V. We'll be updating it in the months to come, through the release of the game and beyond.

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You could say that people have been expecting a GTA V as far back as when GTA sequels first had numbers in their titles. But the first hints... the first rumors that seemed to have at least some possibility of truth behind them, hit in 2009. And so that's when our timeline begins...

October 28—First GTA V-related clues found... (or so we thought.)

12:27pm—GTA IV add-on might be teasing GTA V's location

An ad featured in the GTA IV addon The Ballad of Gay Tony, which is a parody of the 2009 film New York, I Love You, seems to signal that GTA is leaving the New York-inspired Liberty City of GTA IV. There is much debate in the GTA community over whether this is a genuine hint or simply a joke.

12:30pm—Fans find possible hint of a character who might be in GTA V. Maybe. Kind of.

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Another possible clue spotted: during the end credits of GTA IV's The Ballad of Gay Tony, the character Packie McReary takes a taxi to Francis International Airport. The theory is that he's en route to the sequel.

Financial analyst Mike Hickey: "We believe there is building suspension for a pre-E3 announcement, although we expect nothing from Rockstar at this year's official E3 event." (Note that this will happen again and again.)

A bunch of URLs registered by Rockstar-owning publisher Take-Two—among them gems like CashforDeadDreams.com and SixFigureTemps.com—suggest Rockstar wants to satirize the recession this time around. Except maybe at the time of writing there'd still be nothing interesting on these sites.

Given that Sam Houser being heard saying "Good day" so quickly that it might have sounded like "GTA" could constitute a GTA V update for news-starved fans, the fact that Rockstar gives a shoutout to the GTA faithful during a Max Payne 3 Q&A on their very own Newswire is kind of a big deal. Kind of.

The debut trailer is scheduled for November 2. Only Rockstar would dare to run a trailer for an upcoming game during the heavy fall release season and know full well that, on that day, no big fall games will matter.

4:20pm—Well, that didn't take long! GTA V to be set in Los Angeles/Los Santos

Sources familiar with the game confirm long-standing rumors that GTA V is, indeed, set in a fictional version of Los Angeles—and one tosses in a tantalizing bonus claim that the game will have multiple protagonists.

A few disgruntled fans, upon discovering no solid evidence of a PC version being released, created a petition. Now, online petitions are a dime a dozen and they're rarely effective, but ye gods, has this one gotten huge.